the ammunition on board exploded, and she burned for several days. The aircraft also bombed the Kriegsmarine troop ship (a Norwegian cargo ship requisitioned with her crew by the German occupying authorities), which had some 850 German soldiers embarked and was protected by two escorts. Skramstad was severely damaged and beached, burning for days. The number of casualties on board this ship are unclear, with some sources stating that 200 of the troops died while others report that only one Norwegian sailor and a few German soldiers were killed. The Norwegian resistance movement claimed after the attack that around 360 Germans had been killed in the bombing of Skramstad, while the official German reports state that 37 soldiers died. The American aircraft also strafed the German cargo ship and attacked the ammunition barge F231, which was hit by a bomb and beached. After all the aircraft had completed their attacks, the force returned to Ranger shortly before 9:00 am. As well as the four American aircraft destroyed, six suffered damage from anti-aircraft artillery. The German response to the raid was hampered by a shortage of capacity within the local military communication network. Following the attacks, a German report described their channels of communications as "constantly noisy with interruptions" during the attack. This prevented the Germans from sending warnings once the attack had begun. Aftermath At about 2 pm on 4 October, as the Home Fleet was sailing westwards, three German reconnaissance aircraft approached Ranger, which was covered by a combat air patrol of two pairs of Wildcats, which were guided to intercept the German aircraft. One pair shot down a Junkers Ju 88 bomber from the carrier, and the other pair shot down a Heinkel He 115 float plane from Ranger. The remaining aircraft, a Ju 88, was not sighted, and escaped. These were the first German aircraft to have been shot down by US Navy aircraft. One of the Wildcats crashed during landing; its pilot survived. All of the elements of the Home Fleet dispatched for Operation Leader returned to Scapa Flow by 6 October. Wartime Allied military commanders and post-war historians deemed Operation Leader a success. Rear Admiral Hustvedt believed that the best result of the attack was that it demonstrated that American and British ships could work together with "effectiveness, mutual understanding and complete cooperation". Admiral Patrick N. L. Bellinger, the air commander of the US Navy's